Rockies Continue to Hire Coaches from Old Rosters, Plug Away at Solving Mile High Pitching

Purple Row | Feb 19

The Rockies continue to reconnect with their past by hiring all sorts of notable names from Rockies squads in the mid-90's. Until recently, we could point to the inaugural Coors Field squad of 1995, which featured SS/MGR Walt Weiss, LF/HC Dante Bichette, 3B/Special Assistant Vinny Castilla, and reserve OF/baserunning coordinator Trenidad Hubbard.

Yesterday, the Rockies expanded their horizons. Sure, they hired 1995 2B Eric Young as a guest instructor during Spring Training, but they also hired Pedro Astacio for the same position. While Astacio is a top five starting pitcher in franchise history, he was never teammates with all of those coaches. Well, Eric Young anyway. Astacio was acquired from the Dodgers in a trade for Eric Young straight up in August of 1997.

So now we have coaches from different Rockies' eras.

None of these coaches will have a significant hand in solving the pitching puzzle a mile above sea level. That is left to Mark Wiley, Bo LcLaughlin, and Jim Wright. One plan currently hatched to get around the troubles of Coors Field is carrying an extra reliever. Manager Walt Weiss notes the reasoning stemming from chronically higher OPS by Rockies pitchers the third time through a lineup. To his credit, he is very correct.

It is perhaps amusing that this comes on the heels of the first year in over a decade in which Rockies' pitchers actually pitched better the third time through the lineup than the second. However, the gap is small, Project 5183 muddled the fruit bowl comparison, and these numbers include road games.

It might very well be a good idea to carry an extra reliever for homestands if the bench is versatile enough, but I can't help noting that opposing teams being forced to shuffle their bullpen to carry an extra reliever for a Coors series used to be a Rockies advantage.